Note that switching to your pistol is faster than reloading, and that in some situations, having a pistol out is more effective than your primary (e.g. a sniper expecting enemies nearer than 20 meters to his locations should adhere to this rule).

Apart from the special empire trait pistols, all empire specific pistols fall into the same categories - a pistol good for point-blank defense (Cerberus, TX1 and LA3), generally coming with a burst-fire mode, a medium-range pistol with medium damage (LA8, TX2 and Beamer), a pistol with slightly less damage but a larger magazine(Manticore, TS2 and NC4), and the directive pistols which are just the pistol you started with an integrated suppressor. The only difference is that the VS starting pistol are of the medium damage at range kind, while the TR starter is the close range burst fire pistol and the NC one is the slightly lower damage but higher mag capacity kind.

The Special trait pistols are NC08 Mag-Scatter — shotgun sidearm for the NC, T4 AMP — a fully automatic pistol with an extremely fast RoF for the TR and Spiker — charge pistol with a splash damage option for the VS. The T4 AMP can output very high DPS at extremely short ranges, but falls short at anything beyond that to Repeater. The NC08 Mag-Scatter is about on the level of the Desperado but slightly better at range with a smart-choke so may be worth the investment, and Spiker is actually quite good at flushing out infantry and suppression due to the splash damage.